Published on 06/14/2007

The round-trip commute from Rancho Cordova to downtown Sacramento is 40 miles, and for 25 years Jacques Graber has made the weekday journey by bicycle.

Graber has customized two modern-day bikes for the trips. His streamlined road bike is ideal during cooperative weather on the route along the Jedediah Smith Memorial Trail and city streets. Graber's other primary commute bike is a more heavily equipped mountain bike for inclement weather.

But on special occasions, just as he did while traversing Tasmania or riding in Berlin and Prague or while setting long-distance mileage records, Graber might decide to commute on an antique bike. He could choose an 1884 Humber, an 1895 Columbia, an 1889 Eagle or any of the more than 100 bikes in his collection.

An engineering geologist for the State of California, Graber, 52, is a builder, collector, curator, restorer and expert among experts in the niche world of vintage bicycles. The older the machine, the better.

(This article was originally published in the Sacramento Bee on Sept. 8, 2005.)

The round-trip commute from Rancho Cordova to downtown Sacramento is 40 miles, and for 25 years Jacques Graber has made the weekday journey by bicycle.

Graber has customized two modern-day bikes for the trips. His streamlined road bike is ideal during cooperative weather on the route along the Jedediah Smith Memorial Trail and city streets. Graber's other primary commute bike is a more heavily equipped mountain bike for inclement weather.

But on special occasions, just as he did while traversing Tasmania or riding in Berlin and Prague or while setting long-distance mileage records, Graber might decide to commute on an antique bike. He could choose an 1884 Humber, an 1895 Columbia, an 1889 Eagle or any of the more than 100 bikes in his collection.

An engineering geologist for the State of California, Graber, 52, is a builder, collector, curator, restorer and expert among experts in the niche world of vintage bicycles. The older the machine, the better.

And while titanium and carbon components and all things light may be more in vogue, Graber would rather discuss and ride highwheelers, the Standard Ordinary or heavy, original cruiser bikes.

Since he purchased his first vintage bike more than two decades ago, Graber has incorporated his fondness for fitness with his collector's passion. He'll soon realize a longtime dream when he introduces a limited line of custom highwheelers (called Ordinaries), under the model name Algenon. The bikes, with exact specifications from originals, will have front wheels 48 inches to 58 inches in diameter.

"I've always been fascinated by all things old," he says. "It's just a fascination for things that don't exist much today. I just sort of have this penchant for things that have been neglected, then bringing them back to their former glory and making them actually live again."

Well-known throughout Northern California and an active provider of expert knowledge on the Internet, Graber is active on numerous cycling forums.

He is not alone in his unique interests. Dozens of antique bikes, all at least 100 years old, makes up the bulk of the California Bicycle Center collection, a longtime project for Graber, Tim Bustos and David Takemoto-Weerts, two friends in Davis, California.

Those collectors, among others with similar interests, have the funding, expertise and inventory for a museum. But they've yet to secure a permanent location.

"Each time I show the bikes, there's a lot of reaction," Takemoto-Weerts says. "But it always reminds me that there's not a lot new under the sun. The ergonomics are the same. The seats were once leather and now they're leather again. The bicycle has changed in many ways but it's also stayed very much the same."

"When I was a little kid, I was riding all over the place," says Graber, who was raised in Fairfield. "It made my mother quite irate when I didn't appear for a day and had ridden God knows where. But I just loved bike-riding, and my best friends and I would go out riding all the time."

During high school, Graber's daily rides increased to more than 50 miles on an original three-speed he converted to a nine-speed.

Nearly 20 years later, Graber's boyhood hobby morphed two-fold into an adult passion and his niche expertise.

One day in 1982, while walking in Old Folsom, he noticed an old, fat-tired bicycle for sale and bought it from a woman.

"I was just so fascinated by it; I took it home and set about finding out who made it and what year it was made," Graber recalls. "I wrote a lot of letters, including to a guy named Leon Dixon who at the time was an avid collector.

"He wrote me back a very nice letter and told me exactly what I had. It was a 1941 Mercury Pacemaker. I was able to track down the parts and I restored it, even painted it the original colors. It cost me like 75 bucks. That's what got me started looking and finding."

Like other collectors, Graber has a scavenger's instinct. He's combed garage sales and Internet sites, and he's had his share of good luck.

On a ride with friends in 1985, the group progressed along the Garden Highway and stopped to rest in the hamlet of Verona. Graber noticed some handlebars behind an old pump house. Upon closer inspection, he discovered an abandoned moto-bike from what he thought was the late 1920s. Borrowing a few bungee cords and with an assist from fellow riders, Graber secured the bike across his back and shoulders for the ride home.

"I felt like an angel with steel wings," he says. "We rode the 30 miles home and still managed to beat the group. We passed a few a cars whose drivers looked at me like I was a space alien with wings on his shoulders.

"When I got back to town, I was able to identify the bike as a Hawthorne Flyer (sold by Montgomery Ward) from 1931. Again, I looked in a bunch of old catalogs, found out the original paint colors and went about the job of restoring it."

In other words, Graber continued his quest to give old bikes new life.